“Was it a fun trip?”

When I tell people that I traveled to Cape Town in 2015 with A Fresh Chapter, they often ask me, “Was it a fun trip?”

I answer, “No.”

Why, then, would I recommend such a trip to friends who have gone through cancer or lost someone to cancer? Because even if a trip isn’t fun, it can be powerful. It can be important and impactful in other ways than being a traditionally enjoyable vacation. It can be good in ways that maybe aren’t immediately apparent but benefit you later on.

At the end of the Cape Town Odyssey, I stayed in a B&B alone and wrote to a friend who had lived in the city many years earlier, searching for a way to process the experience I’d just had.

Here’s an excerpt:

I’m writing to you from a rooftop terrace in Cape Town, the South African flag flying right beside me. The sun is going down and the city is glittering, and the half moon is above me. I’m enjoying some grocery store goodies and a glass of Africana wine purchased in Stellenbosch, and I’m alone, blissfully alone, after a very long two weeks here.

 Here’s what’s on my mind: I am having a very hard time absorbing this place. I adore its beauty — it’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever visited. The people are the kindest anywhere. And yet I’ve felt terribly stressed the entire visit. I wonder what it was like for you, living here so recently after apartheid. This country has an incredible resilience, and has made great strides, it seems, to heal from the pain of the past. But 21 years is not very long, and there’s such a long way to go.

 Our group stayed in Sea Point, behind gates and fences. Everything is behind gates and fences, and barbed wire and razor wire, and electric fences, and spikes. Though the people here adore their city, to a visitor it seems there still exists a culture of fear. It’s disheartening, and yet that incredible resilience among the people here is hard to parallel. I don’t know. I’m really having a hard time processing, and I wanted to share with someone who has been here.

I leave Tuesday night, and honestly, am really glad to be coming home. I’m so raw right now. People are hoping I write something about our experience, and I just don’t even know where to start.

Lessons learned

With the distance of a couple of years, here are a few takeaways.

1. Discomfort can be good. It didn’t escape me, the reality that I could choose to sit on a rooftop terrace enjoying wine and a pretty view while people were surviving in a sea of corrugated tin shacks just a thirty-minute drive away. The discomfort of that reality is good; it shakes us out of our complacency. It doesn’t mean we should stop enjoying the good things life has to offer. In fact, in a hyper-busy and paradoxically more disconnected world, I think we should take more opportunities to enjoy things like a delicious meal with friends or a visit to an inspiring place. We also should think more deeply about ways to help ensure more people have those same opportunities.

2. Distance is an illusion. While visiting the Cape Town township of Nyanga, I met young people who want to be writers or opera singers or accountants. I met adults who want a better life for themselves and the people in their community, and they work hard for it while managing health issues and living in difficult circumstances. Sound familiar? It is.

3. Taking a step away offers another perspective. Witnessing economic and racial disparity through the lens of another country helped me to recognize it more clearly in my own.

4. We traveled to the same place via different pathways. Every cancer experience is different, but my fellow travelers and I connected through the commonalities. We’ve stayed in touch, and I’ve been lucky enough to reconnect with a couple of them here in the states and on one perfectly timed trip abroad. We’ve lost two of our fellow travelers since Cape Town. I feel both grateful for the time I had with them and terribly cheated out of more.

5. I learned important things about myself. On some level one thing I disliked about myself is my sensitivity, physical and emotional. This trip helped me to view my body as an asset, a first-alarm system instead of a problematic “other.” It also helped me to recognize that feeling things deeply helps me to be a strong observer, more attuned writer and thoughtful listener. In a time seemingly marked by the absence of sensitivity, I see now more than ever how valuable an asset it is.

6. Sometimes it was fun! We had wonderful food and dinners together. We played drums and drew pictures and walked on the beach. We had great conversations and laughed with new friends. We visited wineries. We saw penguins in the wild and walked to Cape Point, the southwestern-most point in Africa. I crossed the equator and the Tropic of Capricorn for the first time, significant traveler milestones.

And now, as my good friend Kate is about to travel with A Fresh Chapter to Peru, I am so thrilled for her. Whatever experiences she has will have their own impact and meaning for her, and this is part of the process when we embark on odysseys like this.

Nikki Kallio is a writer and editor based in Wisconsin. She holds an MFA from Goddard College and is an award-winning short-story writer whose creative work has appeared in lit journals like Midwestern Gothic and Minerva Rising. She also works with Wide Open Writing, an organization that hosts writing retreats in Italy, Mexico and Maine. Nikki is a breast cancer survivor.